‘The First Texas White House’ goes up for auction

Historic 34-room mansion, including ballroom, most recently listed for $5.95M

Millionaires exhausted from this presidential election can hide away in their own six-acre estate complete with a mini White House in La Porte, Texas.

The historic 34-room mansion billed as “The First Texas White House” and built by the 31st governor of the Lone Star State will hit the virtual auction block come December after sitting on the market for 10 months.

The nine-bedroom, 15-bathroom house, which is about 30 minutes from downtown Houston, went on the market in February for an asking price of $5.995 million, according to Zillow. The seller reduced the price by nearly a half-million dollars before deciding to put the property up for auction. The virtual bidding is slated for Dec. 8 at 7 p.m. through Concierge Auctions, which will use the online auction interface Instant Gavel. There is no reserve price for the property at the auction.

Former Texas governor and oil magnate Ross S. Sterling commissioned Houston-area architect Alfred C. Finn to design the 1927 home after the official residence of the U.S. president in Washington, D.C.

The home shares many of the White House’s neoclassical features, such as a roof lined with balustrades and a rounded, columned portico overlooking Galveston Bay that looks nearly identical to the south-facing side of the presidential home.

The house spans nearly 21,000 square feet and has a ballroom with space for 300 people, Tiffany chandeliers and pressed-tin ceilings, according to a description Concierge published on its website.

“It stood as a landmark on the Houston ship channel,” reads a plaque on the property erected by the Texas Historical Commission in 1978. “By night its roof deck commanded a view of the lighted industrial plants in this region.”

Layers of concrete, plaster and lath, deeply sunken foundations and beams running the length of the structure make the house hurricane resistant, the plaque reads.

Some of the home’s historical spaces, like a gentleman’s lounge and a mahogany-paneled library, remain, while others were converted for modern use. For example, a canning room at the basement level is now a full kitchen, a flower room was converted to a laundry room and the sellers are calling the old fur-storage closet a “holiday closet.” The basement also has a projector screen, a game room and a gym with separate men’s and women’s locker rooms, according to Concierge.

A sales manager from the auction house was not immediately available for comment, a spokeswoman said.

Gov. Sterling lived in the elaborate home with his wife and five children and entertained a parade of guests before eventually selling the property to a civic club in the 1940s. Boys Harbor, a shelter for homeless boys, later took over the property and converted it into a juvenile home that operated until 1961.

Successive owners since then have remodeled and restored the building to its original condition. The current owners, Marcos and Judith Masson, bought the home in 2013 for $2.04 million, according to Harris County property records.

Since then, the couple has invested a whopping $1.3 million in updates, including tearing down and reconstructing a retaining wall for $350,000, installing custom-made balustrades from Egypt and a $200,000 new roof, and building a children’s play area, according to disclosures posted by the auction house.

A few issues with the property include sealed doors in the basement and cracks in the portico through which water occasionally leaks into the basement, according to seller’s disclosure forms.

Interested parties have to register in order to bid in the virtual auction, a process that includes wiring $100,000 into an escrow agent’s account by 5 p.m. on Dec. 6, according to the Concierge’s terms and conditions.

The winning bidder will have to pay a buyer premium to Concierge of either 12% of the final price or $175,000, whichever is greater, according to the terms. The sellers are hosting a preview event for the property on Nov. 15.